Moyet reveals cause of agoraphobia

Alison Moyet has described how a simple slip-up during a conversation with fellow singer Elvis Costell o led to her being housebound for years with agoraphobia.

The former Yazoo star, who has sold more than 20 million records, also revealed she has smashed all her gold discs and recently had everything deleted from her computer including emails and demos of new songs.

Appearing on Desert Island Discs on Radio 4, she described Costello as her "idol" and chose one of his songs - a cover of a track by country rockers The Flying Burrito Brothers - among her eight discs.

She told host Kirsty Young: "I' d gone to see him play in Southend and he'd been brilliant, he's sung this two hour set and he was formidable. I absolutely loved it and there was a party back at Dr Feelgood's house that he went to and I'd been invited to and there he was and he was lovely, he was charming and I wanted to say to him 'you were wonderful' and all these wonderful descriptions of him and what came out of my mouth was 'you dragged that out a bit, didn't you?'"

She said: "Once I did that, I just felt I don't trust myself in polite society". She said she felt so bad about her comment that she bought all Costello's subsequent records but "couldn't listen to them".

Moyet said the condition "feels very normal", adding: "It's outside that feels odd and there was years I didn't go out beyond working."

She said the appeal of a desert island would include the chance to "get away from any kind of mail, any kind of inbox, any kind of correspondence ".

She said: "A year ago I took my computer to be mended and just told them to wipe everything without saving anything .